Before Boston City Hall was moved to its current location at Government Center, a succession of three different city halls occupied a site on School Street between Tremont and Washington. The last Old City Hall (45 School Street, 617/523-8678, www.oldcityhall.com), built at the end of the Civil War, is a perfectly preserved example of Second Empire style, with a wedding-cake layer of columns beneath a sloping mansard roof. (It has long been adapted for use as an office building.)

In the courtyard is a statue of Benjamin Franklin, looking as if he popped right out of a history book, along with two whimsical statues that represent the mascots of the two political parties—a donkey for Democrats and an elephant for Republicans.

On the sidewalk in front of Old City Hall, be sure to note the plaque that designates the original location of the Boston Latin School, the first public school in America, which gave its name to the street and still exists in a new location in the Fenway. Among its graduates are Samuel Adams, Ben Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Leonard Bernstein.

The plaque itself is in the form of a hopscotch board, surrounded by the letters of the alphabet designated by their appropriate objects (apple, bird, cat…). Particularly Bostonian is the grasshopper representing G, which is copied from the weathervane on top of Faneuil Hall.